Dating Data: Crunching the Numbers on First Kisses

The Wonders of 24/7 Time Tracking

It has almost been 3 years since I started doing 24/7 time tracking of my activites. Given the fine granularity (I track in increments of every quarter hour), the data allows for some interesting discoveries of trends.

Case in Point: My Love Life

I was recently inspired to analyze the timing of my physical interactions with 5 people, 2 males and 3 females, with whom I have engaged in non-platonic interactions. [Hat tip to David Wecsler for the catchy title idea "Dating Data"].

More specifically, we’ll look at the time it took from meeting the person for the first time to physically escalating to a point beyond what is considered appropriate for “friends”, more commonly known as the first kiss.

The Timing of First Kisses

Results of the First Kiss Analysis

On average, it took men 7:00 hours of in person interaction before the first kiss, while it took women 7:35 hours. In general, it took on average 7:21 hours before the first kiss. From this small sample, it seems there is actually very little difference between the physical interactions of yours truly with men and women in this analysis.

Given the results of an informal poll done with friends and fellow self-trackers at the Quantified Self conference, there could be much variation of hours before physical escalation occurs comfortably–some reported “less than 5 hours”, while others said “a few months, at least”, and more others with everything in between.